


Even Though Our Love is Doomed (Remix)

by jayjayverse



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Fan Art, Kind of time travel, M/M, Multiverse, OldTony, youngtony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-23
Updated: 2019-02-23
Packaged: 2019-11-04 05:04:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17892017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayjayverse/pseuds/jayjayverse
Summary: The next disaster came and went and this time Tony can't count the days until the next anymore.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laireshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/gifts).
  * Inspired by [An Infinite Loop](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17176919) by [laireshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi). 
  * In response to a prompt by [laireshi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laireshi/pseuds/laireshi) in the [2019_Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/2019_Cap_Ironman_Remix_Madness) collection. 



> Title based on the song of [ Garbage ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLRYS-AkGA8) (Because is so perfect for Stony and I love it and I think is perfect for this story).
> 
> Laireshi I love so much your fics and I feel I create just a fic of your fic, lol, I hope you like this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was so obsessed with this since I read Infinite loop, it all started with a little phrase and then a sketch and then a page and then I started writing some fun facts / a kind of script as I always do with all my drawings, but then I have something that can be Consider a Fic / story and I decided to share this mess too, I am not a writer and maybe I have many mistakes, so I just want to apologize and I really hope that this mess can be understandable.

Then there is another great cataclysm that leads Tony and Steve to a fight between them where they can not solve anything together, there is a fight between them that Tony already expected to come, so even they manage to make things work, they create a plan that will save them all, everything is fine, until things get screwed and everything starts a decline that forces Tony to act, takes all the pieces, lies and betrays, he doesn't know what will happen exactly with him, but it doesn't matter, because the world (Steve ) has always imported more than Tony.

There is a bright light that swallows everything and all the sound of the fight completely vanished in an instant and the only thought in Tony's mind was "This is it", the end of a life full of mistakes and successes, the Tony Stark's final. There really not many thoughts that led him to unconsciousness, but there was a person who tormented his last thought, Steve.

Awakening was a surprise, although it was not the first time that Tony had seen the end and still had returned.

The pain in his limbs was not new, but the place where he was lying it was, there was nothing he could recognize.

Tony wait, although it had never been good waiting, he did, surely Steve would be on Reed looking for a way to take him home, it's stupid but there is Tony healing his wounds, trying to fix the armor as best he can with what he has and trying to think about what brought him to this place so he could make his way back.

Days pass or maybe a week, Tony is not sure about the passage of time, and there is only the certainty that nobody will come and the resolution makes him get up and go in search of things that could help him not only to fix the armor, but also to help him get back to home.

This is how he ends up encountering a kind of Avengers in the place, giving reason to his theory about being expelled from his own universe, it is easy to get along with them as if they had been waiting for Iron Man to join the team, they help him and when everything is ready for him to leave, they ask him to stay and he is tempting, because he has become fond of them, but he can't do it, there are people waiting for him and he creates a portal that will take him home.

Only that this portal takes him to another universe, one a little more similar to his where there is a Tony and a Steve who don't have a close relationship but still complement each other and plan the team's strategy, where there are no complications beyond how deal with the villain in turn, this universe is easy and this Tony helps at all times until they create together a device that opens a portal for him, but it is not his universe.

He tries again and again, with time passing, becomes a routine, find someone who can help him to calibrate the device that opens portals that is already embedded to the rib cage of the armor and enters another universe.

Tony see happier places, places where all the heroes have a lot of fun when they are fighting with a villain or even once he go to one where there were no heroes, but still there is a Tony Stark who made weapons for the government.

The universes in which he spends more time are those where there are catastrophes, he tries to help and some of the heroes in that universe accept him with open arms, others not so much, although he does not stay stuck for a long time, because at the end of the day he always remember that he has to go home.

He avoid staying more than a few hours in those universes where Steve exists, because it seems that if there is a Steve and a Tony they will always be magnets attracting each other and He certainly do not want to think too much about the implications of that.

Although there is a universe where he falls and everything is like a dream come true, an utopia that plays with him and makes him hate not have been the lucky one to win the lottery in this vast multiverse, which makes him dream that if maybe he had been a better man and he would not have betrayed Steve maybe he would have this, a house to return after work with a husband who would give him a spectacular welcoming smile and a team behind him, maybe he would not have to count the days until the next catastrophe knocks on their door to choose the best option other than to betray Steve, maybe they wouldn't be destroyed, maybe they could have been happy.

That time does not even spend more than two hours in that universe, because no matter how masochistic he is, it is too painful to see what could have been, but never will be.

The years pass and it's been so long that Tony loses hope, he doesn't even understand why he keeps trying, when in the end he always ends up in another universe that doesn't belong to him and still, he keeps doing it, running through the portal to the next universe, discarding statistics and creating new conjectures that can help him to be closer. 

He doesn't know how long he has been doing this, it has been so much that even if he arrive in his own universe may be it will be like a entering a new one, he know it very well, because in all this adventure he has aged, he has acquired experience and now nothing will be as it was before.

Then it happens, it is his universe and the brilliant happiness spreads everywhere, it is perfect and he is so happy that he can't wait to see the team, to see Steve for the first time in all those years.

He fly through the city until Iron Man stops him, it's an old armor and it could be Rhodey underneath, but it doesn't matter, because he's so happy, he's home, finally, after all this time he's home

He is in the right universe, in the right place, but he is in the wrong time.

And it is his universe, he is more than sure of it, because he can see all his feelings inside this younger Tony, who is more foolish, more naive and more optimistic, but above all this Tony can not look away from Steve when he is in the room and he really doesn't want to think about this Steve who doesn't stop looking at him as if he is trying to find all the similarities between him and the younger Tony, Tony avoiding look at them to much because he knows what awaits them and also hurts not being able to go and touch Steve, touch every single part of him so the feeling that they are together again will be satiated and he can continue working.

They are at a time where Tony has not said "yes" to Steve yet and they have touched heaven, where Tony has not betrayed him and has taken them to hell, they have not entered into that damned vicious circle in which they touch and they break each other, where they always find a way to work until they don't and then they start the countdown until they are together again and promises are made that this time everything will be fine and they will not hurt each other again, although they know they are lies and in the end they will be worse than when everything begin again and only left to pick up the pieces and try to make it as good as possible to be able to go ahead with the wait (promise) of there will be a tacit question with a "yes" that it will take them to touch the heaven as an addict ready for their next dose.

And it's laughable how they look at each other as if they knew every single part of each other, the brightest part and the worst part before entering this endless cycle, although Tony knows the truth, he knows they have not arrived yet to the best part of their relationship, much less to the worst part where they tear and for a moment he would like to think that if he says something, the things will be different for them, but still he keeps quiet and avoids them, more to Steve that Tony, even when Steve corners him one dawn with a "harmless" chocolate cup and a pretty smile that hides a questioning underneath, Tony knows that smile too well to know how to avoid it, but Steve's eyes look at him with so much confidence, with a feeling so pure that it's been too long since his own Steve looked at him like that and Tony wants to keep Steve forever looking at him like that, but he's not deluded, it's not the Tony who once thought that their relationship will be forever, that could make Steve happy, he knows better, has seen countless universes in which they are together and still always find a way to fuck everything and not be happy, so it encloses any feeling, so he only says "Thank you" and turns his back, leaving Steve alone.

Tony leaves the mansion the next day, goes straight to the Baxter building and locks himself in the lab with Reed, Reed is always good, not only helps him find answers because Reed never eludes a challenge, he never ask questions, he doesn't make insubstantial talks, he doesn't force him to talk, concentrates completely on the problem in front of them and makes very good advances, until they get stuck, they are just tired, Reed offers him a guest room and Tony doesn't deny it, because he prefers stay here than go to the mansion.

The younger Tony takes a few days to finally appear in the Baxter building, but when he does he rolls up his expensive shirt and smiles ready to help them figure out how to send Tony back to his right time, Tony think send him back to his mansion and his Steve, but then he thinks things better, three minds are always better than two and he accepts and there comes a point where he even forgets that this other Tony he is working with is himself and there are only a age difference because this doesn't matter anymore.

Tony makes adjustments to his own armor, makes changes so that the system works again and does not need the help of any other person if he arrives at another universe that is not his, in order to calibrate and open another portal, he doesn't leave that nobody touches anything of his things, least of all the younger Tony who looks at him with so much interest, because he does not want Tony to get to where he is, he does not want his future for this Tony.

He is selfish and is being a fool, but for once in all these years he wants to cheat, so when the time comes and Reed and Tony have the portal ready, it does not stop, he talks about the whole thing for the first time since he arrived , tells young Tony the words he hopes will help him not to end up just right here, in the other side, an old man looking for his way to home. He wants to believe that Tony will say "no" when the time comes and his relationship with Steve will never turn into a vicious and painful cycle, the best lie tell to himself, look at the fluctuation in the portal, breathe and hope shines in his chest, it's something he has not fallen in a long time.

He's tired, he's so jaded of everything that the simple thought of that behind this portal is his universe, his right time with all that he has missed, with his home ready to receive him, makes every little piece of him vibrate in emotion and a terror that melts inside the pit of his stomach, he's ready to go back, to see Steve and say "yes" to him once again, so it takes all his strength and courage to step inside the portal.


End file.
